The Rocking Horse Winner

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

Creative Writing: “‘The Rocking-Horse Winner’ in Contemporary Society”

In this activity, students will write a creative piece that adapts Lawrence’s story to the present day.

While the themes of Lawrence’s allegory are timeless, there are several references that ground his work in a specific era in history. For this Activity, you will write a creative piece that adapts Lawrence’s story to the present day. In this vein, be sure to keep the same principles of the plot and the characters; however, feel free to explore characterization related to gender, setting, technology, and even the method of gambling. After drafting your story and submitting it for peer review, read a segment of it out loud for your classmates. Finally, consider the similarities and differences in how you and your classmates incorporated Lawrence’s themes of The Unhealthy Relational Dynamic of Emotional Incest, Luck: Fortune and Providence, and The Malignant Insatiability of Greed into your specific works.

Teaching Suggestion: This Activity invites students to separate the themes of the story from the period in which it is set. Students may find the gender norms expressed in the story, especially the expectations around wage earning in the family, to be out of date; in this regard, students may be invited to change the gender of one or more characters or update the social norms and expectations for work. Their updated stories may also want to consider different attitudes regarding children making bets and creative ways modern technology might play a role in either the mother’s greed or the protagonist’s desire to please. This Activity may be done as either group work or an individual writing assignment.